Investor's Business Daily, August 1st, 2007
Homeland Security: Congressional Republicans say they won't leave for the August break until gaps in surveillance law are filled. Democrats will probably vote for a rewrite, but not for the right reason.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is pushing the administration's position that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs to be amended. Saying that national security cannot be postponed, the White House and its GOP supporters want Congress to change the law so that warrants would not be needed before monitoring the communications of suspected terrorists who are outside the U.S. They believe there are dangerous holes in the current statute that need to be filled.
"Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country," President Bush explained in his Saturday national radio address.
McConnell is convinced we urgently need to update the law. Since security officials are concerned that al-Qaida is planning a terrorist attack on American soil -- reported by at least one news source -- we'd have to agree.
Democrats appear to be in a cooperative mood, at least for a temporary fix of FISA. But it's not because they are suddenly concerned about security. It's more likely they don't want to be blamed for not acting if there's a terrorist attack on the U.S. while Congress is in its August recess or shortly thereafter. It's all about politics.
The American Civil Liberties Union and similar groups, meanwhile, are not being as agreeable. They believe the administration wants the power to use the communications of foreigners to target Americans for wiretaps without warrants.
There's no evidence for that, only speculation. So it comes down to this:
Either we trust the administration to fight the war on terrorism as forcefully as it can while still protecting our rights, or we think it's up to something sinister.
The ACLU and other so-called civil libertarian groups believe the latter -- and it has more to do with their longstanding biases toward Bush in particular and Republicans in general than the wiretap issue that Congress is wrestling with. Their prejudices have them so intent on opposing whatever the administration does to fight this war, they are willing to be pawns for the enemy.
The same can usually be said about the Democratic Party, also known as the Party of Defeat. At least in this instance Democrats are showing some concern about security -- even if it is politically motivated.
